By Chris Brown / STL Baseball Today
Updated 9/27 @ 1:00pm CT:
Adam Wainwright now appears just one step away from completing his rehab from a torn Achilles tendon and returning to the Cardinals in a relief role for the first time since 2006.
Cleared for baseball activities last week, just five months after suffering an injury that was expected to take 6-9 months to heal, the veteran right-hander threw more than 20 pitches off the mound on Saturday in a simulated game. Wainwright described the session as “much better” than his first of that type on Wednesday.
“It felt like me out there today, so that was incredibly uplifting,” Wainwright told KMOV. “The hitters tell you that. When it’s not crisp, sharp, located, they go over the fence like last time.” The 34-year-old added that his pitches had good late movement and that his location was sharper.
Wainwright rapped up his work by participating in fielding drills and practicing covering the first base bag, something he said he’s now comfortable with for the first time in his rehab.
“The agility drills we’re doing (in rehab) are so much harder than covering first a couple times. They’ve tested me to the max this last week. Covering first now is no big deal,” he said.
As for that final step, MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch reports that Wainwright plans to meet with the doctor who performed his Achilles surgery in the next few days to seek clearance to return to game action. Assuming all goes well, the three-time All-Star hopes to be activated for the Cardinals’ key upcoming series in Pittsburgh.
General Manager John Mozeliak said he “would not rule out” Wainwright appearing in a game next week, but quickly added that Wainwright would still only appear in relief, despite Carlos Martinez’s season-ending shoulder injury. Mozeliak did express optimism in regards to Wainwright’s session on Saturday.
“Certainly, today was a good day for him. He certainly looked like he had a better feel for pitching today instead of simply throwing.”
Update 9/27: Mozeliak said on the Fox Sports Midwest pregame show on Sunday that Wainwright will throw another simulated game on Monday in Pittsburgh.
The last time Wainwright pitched as a reliever was during the Cardinals World Series run in 2006, when he served as the team’s closer throughout the postseason. Almost a decade later, potentially just days away from an improbable return, Wainwright says he’s ready for any role he can get.
“My role is yet to be defined, if I even have a role. There’s no way to know, but never count me out. I could pitch the third inning or the eighth inning. I might pitch all of them, you never know.”
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